Asians thank parents for top grades

Year after year, Asian students in Illinois outpace their peers on state tests.

Test results from the Illinois State Board of Education show the state's small population of Asian students posting higher passing rates on reading and math tests than every other racial group--at every grade tested--this year.

And a Tribune analysis of average test scores by grade shows Asian students consistently scoring higher than white, Hispanic and black students since 2000. What explains the gains?

Educators, parents and students say Asian students' gains are fueled by their family's attitudes, with parents pushing harder and almost exclusively on academics, particularly in the early grades, while whites emphasize sports and extracurricular activities as well as good grades. The state doesn't break out Asian students by country, but census data show that the largest groups in the Chicago area are Indian, Filipino, Chinese, Korean and Japanese.

Since federal No Child Left Behind reforms were enacted in 2002, educators have focused on narrowing performance gaps between white and black or Latino students.

Meanwhile, the gap between white and Asian students in Illinois has mostly widened in five years, the Tribune found.

In 2000, for example, less than 1 point separated white and Asian average scores on the 5th grade reading test. This year, that difference grew to about 4 points. In 8th grade math, Asians scored 6.3 points higher than whites in 2000, but 8.5 points higher this year.

Only in high school math has the gap narrowed slightly between Asian and white students. Both groups have posted slight declines since 2000, but Asians dropped a little more on the 11th grade test.

In grade school, the gap has widened in part because white students have posted flat reading scores since 2000, while Asians have improved some of their already high average scores.

Asians also have posted larger gains than whites in grade school math since 2000.

Several Asian students, recently named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists, said academics come first in the minds of their accomplished parents.

"Growing up in a Chinese family, grades are highly emphasized," said Naperville North High School senior Eugene Wang, who recalled having to lobby his parents to let him play in middle school sports.

"When it came to academic opportunities, my parents would present research opportunities, camps--they'd bring the brochures to me," he said.

Extracurricular activities are more acceptable in high school, when students need to build resumes for college applications.

But Nanditha Ramachandran, an Indian senior at Naperville North, said she still encountered some resistance from her mother when she joined the track team last year. "She said, `I don't know if you're going to get your schoolwork done.'"

Jack Zhou, a Chinese senior at Lake Zurich High School, said in elementary school his father, who is an engineer, would teach him math far more advanced than what he was doing in class.

When he read fantasy and science fiction in middle school, he said, his parents would remind him to read "famous books by famous authors," as well as biographies of scientists and entrepreneurs.

Beilin Ye, a senior at Chicago's Whitney Young Magnet High School, said getting good grades isn't just about bolstering her academic record. Respecting her Chinese heritage also is important.

"You bring honor to your whole race," she said.

She said her father, who works in computer science, would add his own math problems to her homework and her mother would take her to the library every day.

Ye's mother, Xiaohong Chen, was a doctor in China and is a nurse here. In her homeland, she said, people respect those who are smart and study hard.

She and her husband came to the United States in the early 1990s with high hopes.

"Our dream ... is giving my daughter the better life. But she has to do her part."